Chapter 9: Showdown
After everything with the Dark Elves had finished Sean asked for a meeting with Coulson's team. They set a rendezvous for the Lighthouse and it was just a matter of meeting up now. Fortunately with everyone working on the same page Sean now had his own quinjet modified by the team of Tony and Shuri.
The two geniuses working together, with input from Bruce on occasion, had begun upgrading anything they could get their hands on. Tony's and Rhodey's armors, Cap's shield, Bucky's arm (once his brainwashing was finally cleared out), Sam's wings, and every other piece of equipment that fell into their range.
Between this and the fact that the Avengers team was now at nearly twenty members, meant they were even more effective. It wasn't uncommon for one or more of them to be deployed to crisis areas around the world. There had been a few attempts to control or limit them, but they never managed to get very far.
Sean was shocked to find that Ava had managed to grab all of the items on his list. He was now the owner of nearly everything of use or power, outside of standard sources, that he knew of on the planet. In the coming years he would have his hands full experimenting with everything.
Besides just the items he had told her about, she had kept up his habit of buying media and keeping his server stocked with what seemed like every file on the internet. She also took the opportunity to pay a few cartels and crime families a visit to lighten their loads. This netted them resources, weapons, money, and a surprising amount of art.
Finally the quinjet reached its destination and, with a quick exchange to the base, was parked in the hangar. Coulson's large 'bus' that served as his mobile base was already parked when they arrived.
Sean and Ava were shown to a conference room not far from the hangar where they found Coulson's team. Inside was the man himself, a pair of young brunette women, a lanky black man, a timid brown haired man, and an intimidating asian woman.
In order these were Coulson, Skye, Simmons, Triplett, Fitz, and May. The two sides exchanged pleasantries and introductions before settling down around the table in the middle of the room.
Coulson was the first to speak up, "So what is it you needed to see us for?"
"Actually it was more Skye I needed to see, but I figured she'd be more comfortable with people she trusted around." Sean laid a folder down on the table between the two groups.
"Me?" The woman in question looked confused, "Why me?"
Sean tapped the folder in front of him, "Because I have the answers that you have been looking for." Everyone but Ava looked shocked at that declaration, "Now I'm not going to withhold anything from you, but you have to know that some of this is not good. It also may have a huge impact on things to come."
"I can't possibly be that important, I'm just an orphan." Skye was already starting to look a little overwhelmed. Coulson laid a hand on her shoulder drawing her attention, he just nodded in support but that seemed to be enough. With a deep breath she turned back to Sean and nodded.
"Okay, I'm going to get everything out of the way at once so save any questions for after." Once he received a nod from everyone present he cleared his throat, opened the folder, and began relaying her history.
"You were born Daisy Johnson to an American doctor Calvin Johnson and a Chinese woman Jiaying. Your father was working for Doctors Without Borders in the Hunan Province at the time and your mother helped as a translator. Now after they had you Hydra, while disguised as Shield, came after your mother for reasons I will explain shortly.
"They kidnapped the elders of the village, including your mother. Your father went to search for her and what he found sent him into a rage. While he was doing that you were found in the village by a proper Shield team. When he returned to find you missing he tore through the team to find you.
"To investigate the subsequent massacre another team was sent in and found you in the arms of the dead lead agent. Due to the circumstances they designated you an 0-8-4 and brought you back to the States. Shortly after that your father followed them and began killing the team one by one in order to find you.
"Not knowing what was happening they hid you in an orphanage to keep you safe and the last agent went into hiding in Mexico. After that you know the rest of your part. Now let me explain the full circumstances.
"Your mother was part of a group of people called Inhumans. They are descendants of people that were modified by an alien race called the Kree in an attempt to create slave soldiers. People like your mother that have the genes that were edited develop powers after going through a process known as Terragenesis.
"Her power in particular was an ability to absorb the life force from another to supplement her own. Giving her youth and an increased healing ability. This is why she was hunted by Hydra. In particular she was of interest to Werner Reinhardt who dissected her repeatedly in order to transfer part of her power to himself.
"With his newly regained youth he would go on to lead Hydra as Daniel Whitehall until we killed him a couple of years ago. When he was done with her he abandoned her body in the woods and this is what your father found that sent him off the rails. He was able to eventually piece her back together enough for her powers to heal her but it changed them both.
"He has been looking for you pretty much this whole time, but he has been ruthless and relentless in his search. He has killed anyone who gets in his way and he feels no remorse as long as he can find you, believing the ends justify the means. Your mother on the other hand became the leader of the remaining Inhumans and founded a sanctuary for them called Afterlife.
"I have a pretty good idea where Afterlife is, but your mother has become militant and isolationist. I'm not saying she's evil, but right now she doesn't trust many people. If approached wrong she may try to go to war. I recommend you go to Afterlife with as few people as possible, one of which should be an ally of Shield that will understand your mother's position."
Sean drank from a glass of water that had been brought in while he was talking, "So, do you have any questions?"
The looks on everyone's faces made it clear that they had a great number of questions. The conversation that followed lasted into the night until they broke up. Skye and Coulson would be taking the Ancient One to talk to Jiaying in Afterlife to try and bring the Inhumans onboard with everyone else.
LINE BREAK
It was early in 2018 that word finally came down, Thanos was coming after the stones. This was brought to them by the Guardians of the Galaxy, accompanied by Nebula, after they heard from the Collector that Earth held the remaining Infinity Stones.
In the intervening years the preparations had continued apace. All of the groups that were part of planning the defense had worked to recruit more people and build defenses where they could. The Inhumans had joined the group about a year after they were approached by Daisy, she preferred that to Skye now.
They were wary at first, but the presence of the Ancient One helped to smooth things over and keep everyone calm. It took a lot of long talks, but eventually they accepted that they weren't being used or manipulated and that they were more protected than ever by joining this alliance.
The Avengers had swelled in numbers, pulling from the ranks of their allies and other gifted people in the world, bringing them to a total of thirty members broken into teams of five. Sean and Ava mostly did their own thing, but helped with training and missions when they could.
Wakanda, while keeping to their tribal roots, had increased their technological level to be almost equal to Asgard. Once T'Chaka had stepped down as King, T'Challa had made what seemed to be a radical decision and recalled all of the War Dogs they had around the world. This nearly doubled their population and the forces they could bring to bear.
Dr. Stephen Strange had finally joined the Sorcerers in Kamar-Taj and risen quickly through the ranks. With Kaecilius not looking to wipe out the Sanctums and draw on Dormammu's power, the number and strength of the Sorcerers continued to grow.
Asgard had proved that they could work subtly when necessary and had freed Sakaar from the rule of the Grandmaster. Sakaar was emptied of civilian inhabitants, all of them given the chance to live freely elsewhere. This would be their battleground.
As soon as they received the news plans were put into motion. Sean, bearing four of the Infinity Stones, went to Sakaar and pulled them from his storage so that Thanos would detect them. In the meantime the various armies that were assembled were stationed back on Earth or Asgard in order to try and ambush Thanos.
Carol Danvers had been contacted by Fury a couple of years ago and brought into the planning. Sean wasn't a fan of hers, she was incredibly arrogant and self-centered. When they explained the threat and their plans she tried to say that she could handle Thanos all by herself. She may have been able to do just that, but there was no reason to rely on that.
Fortunately she at least listened to Fury and had spent the time since then preparing the space faring civilizations to join the fight. This included the Nova Corps, the Ravagers, the remaining Skrulls, a rebel faction of Kree, and even the Sovereign. Once the idea of universal genocide was brought to the table people became a lot more cooperative.
So it was that Sean stood alone on Sakaar looking up at the Sanctuary as it orbited above him surrounded by several other ships. It didn't take long for Thanos and his 'Children' to make their appearance. The gauntlet on his hand only held one stone, the Power Stone. Xandar had been warned of the risk and moved the stone to an uninhabited world before Thanos came after it, so it wasn't destroyed in his search.
Behind the large blue man and his underlings the ships launched dozens of troop transports that practically spewed the mindless hordes of Thanos' armies. He was clearly not taking Sean lightly even if he really did believe that he was acting alone, the power of four stones making him cautious.
The Mad Titan approached within speaking distance, "I must say, this is not how I thought my plans would precede. You were one of the defenders on Earth from my Chitauri." Sean didn't respond and merely let the man talk, "Do you know what I am doing? Why it is a necessity?"
"You have a warped definition of necessary. Your planet ran out of resources and now you want to kill half the universe to 'balance the scales' or some such nonsense." Sean wasn't impressed, this whole plan was flawed from the start. "Regardless of the dozens of other ways that particular issue could be solved."
"Have you ever starved? Watched the people around you fight to the death for the finite resources available?" Thanos was getting worked up now. Sean would give the man this: he was certainly passionate and truly believed what he was doing was right. It wasn't, but that didn't stop the man.
"No, never starved. And yes, I've seen resource wars. They're actually quite common. Let me ask you this though: How many planets are inhabited and how many are just out there empty waiting to be mined or harvested or colonized? You have all this power and technology, which by the way is a misuse of resources by your own standards, that could be used to help people in a multitude of ways."
"My destiny is set, it's a shame you won't be there to see it." Thanos gestured the hordes behind him to charge.
As the flood of creatures came towards him Sean pressed a button on his comm. All around him hundreds of portals opened up and through them poured the combined armies of the galaxy arrayed against Thanos.
For a moment the Titan seemed genuinely surprised at this development. With nary a word both sides slammed into each other.
LINE BREAK
Sean had his sights set on Thanos from the moment the fight began. He was intercepted on his path by a pair of Thanos' Black Order. Proxima Midnight wielded a three pronged spear and was the only female member to stay loyal to Thanos. With her was Corvus Glaive, as his name suggested he carried a glaive into battle.
With a cry Proxima stabbed at Sean's chest while Corvus swung his glaive at his legs. The son of Odin batted the spear aside and jumped over the glaive. He landed a flame powered punch into Proxima's face, using his momentum and a bit of fire boost to spin for a roundhouse kick at Corvus.
His leg was blocked by a raised glaive as Proxima turned back, swinging her spear like a baseball bat. Sean was caught in the side and sent careening further into the battle. He found himself surrounded by Outriders and Chitauri, with a quick spin and releasing his hottest flames he took them all down.
There wasn't time to breathe as Corvus came in swinging his glaive in a rising diagonal slash. Deciding to stop playing around Sean pulled one of the newer items in his arsenal out, the Berserker staff. He immediately felt the almost overwhelming rage and subsequently increased power.
Sean didn't really like using the staff unless he needed to, because too much anger can make you reckless in battle. For a fight like this though, the staff would be helpful. A flick of the wrist sent the staff spinning and knocked the glaive off course. Sean thrust it at Corvus and knocked him back.
He had to spin quickly to catch the stab from Proxima, the staff wedging between the prongs of the spear. Sean wrapped his leg up and around the shaft of the spear, giving it a sharp jerk down and out of Proxima's grip. In a flash her spear fell into Sean's storage, twirling the staff around his neck brought it slamming into her face.
Corvus thrust his glaive at Sean from behind and managed to slice along his side, with a hiss he grabbed the glaive and thrust kick back into Corvus. The alien lost his grip and stumbled back. Not giving either of them a chance to recover Sean dropped the Berserker staff back into storage and beheaded Corvus with a spin, ending with a jab right through Proxima's throat. Both bodies disappeared into storage shortly followed by the glaive.
Taking the lull in the fight to look around, Sean saw that the battle was raging all over. The allied forces were quite handily tearing through Thanos' troops, but they seemed to never end. In the skies above the battlefield ships of all kinds flew by in dogfights, occasionally joined by those among the heroes that could fly.
As the creatures around him started closing in again, Sean pulled two of his repulsor guns (now upgraded to be even more powerful than Tony's original repulsors) out of storage and unloaded on them. With just one shot a piece they fell.
He spotted Steve a short distance away going toe-to-toe with Thanos. The Mad Titan was swinging his massive double ended sword, and Cap's shield was already missing a chunk. Using controlled bursts of his fire Sean launched himself over.
"Mind if I cut in?" He dropped in with a pair of shots at Thanos that he negligently blocked with his sword. Steve took the chance to break contact and step back from the alien.
Sean filled his spot with fast kicks and random shots. He wasn't doing any real damage but did push Thanos back a few feet and hopped back to Steve.
"Thanks," was all the old soldier had to say. Sean nodded at him, before they turned their attention back to their foe.
The brief pause was ended when Thanos leapt forward with a slash. Steve stepped forward and knelt with his shield over his head. The blade scraped along it as it slid past. Sean used Steve's back to leap over the Titan, putting two shots into his back as he landed.
Steve jabbed his shield into Thanos' side as the Titan turned to the pain from his back. Sean swept his leg low with a burst of fire and caught Thanos in the back of the knees, it wasn't enough to topple him but he did buckle slightly. A leaping punch in the face from Steve stumbled the man back a few steps.
The two Avengers rushed forward to capitalize on the advantage they had created. Thanos shook his head and triggered the Power Stone, releasing a pulse of blue energy blasting both men away. Sean found himself slamming into a cluster of Outriders driving them all to the ground.
Leaping back to his feet Sean realized he lost his guns along the way. Unleashing his fire into the pile elicited high pitched screeches. Looking up he spotted War Machine, Iron Man, and Iron Maiden (Pepper Stark nee Potts) pass overhead chasing a swarm of Chitauri chariots. A bright light coming from the atmosphere heralded the arrival of Captain Marvel, she slammed into Thanos and started duking it out with him.
Returning his attention to the fight in front of him Sean found his father at the head of a contingent of Asgardian Royal Guards. The Guards were keeping the drones at bay while Odin was fighting with the large form of Cull Obsidian. The Child of Thanos was swinging his scythe in wide sweeps, occasionally letting the chain out to extend the reach.
Odin was holding his own, but he was older now and not as fast as the larger alien. Sean could tell that his father would likely win, but that it might come at a cost. Deciding to get involved he charged in and brought Corvus' glaive back out. He used it to knock the scythe aside and spun in with a thrust to Cull's heart. The alien went down bleeding out quickly, Sean dropped the body and scythe into storage.
"My son," Odin was breathing heavily. The Royal Guards had stepped forward to surround them and buy them a moment.
Sean embraced him briefly, "Father, you should have stayed with the rearguard."
The older man scoffed, "All three of my sons are in this fight, I would be remiss to not fight with them." Indeed all three Princes of Asgard were here. After several years of time in prison and a few touching family moments, Loki had been working hard to make up for his crimes.
Before Sean could respond a ship that was on fire careened into the enemy forces a few hundred yards ahead of them, shaking the ground. As they turned to look Sean caught a glimpse of something.
A straight line from where he stood to Thanos had opened up, he could see the Titan in the process of batting Carol away. He had lost his sword at some point and his current motion left his chest wide open. Without even thinking about it Sean grabbed the spear from his father's hand, Gungnir, and threw it like a javelin.
The motion was purely instinct, he put all of his power into the throw and even boosted the throw with his fire. Almost as soon as it left his hand there was a sonic boom. In less than a second the spear had crossed the distance and slammed into Thanos' chest. It seemed as if the whole world stopped, and it may as well have. The whole battlefield went quiet and all eyes turned to the large blue Titan.
Sean didn't let the moment pass him by, he leapt forward at his full speed moving to slice the gauntlet from Thanos' hand. The movement went uncontested, the hand dropping into storage as it fell. With a fluid spin the blade came up and through the Mad Titan's neck, slicing his head clean off.
As both head and body fell into Sean's storage all hell broke loose. Outriders and Chitauri turned and fled as fast as they could. With a wild cry the allied armies fell on their retreating foes. It would take the rest of the day to corral and mop up the stragglers. Some probably got away, but with all their ships shot down they were stuck on the planet.
With that, the threat of Thanos was ended. At least as long as no one messed with time travel. Sean was quick to track down his girlfriend and make sure she was okay.
The moment they made eye contact she was in his arms, both of them assuring themselves of their health. They shared a deep kiss of relief, as Ava pulled away Sean made a decision.
Surrounded by the cheering masses Sean dropped to his knee and presented a ring he had kept with him for the last few months. "Ava Starr, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"
After a stunned silence she squealed and dove at him with a loud, "YES!"
LINE BREAK
The remaining year of Sean and Ava's time in the MCU passed by in a blur. With Thanos taken care of the forces that had allied together against him kept those bonds strong. The Inhumans decided to set up a colony for themselves on Sakaar under the protection of Asgard, they felt safer removed from human reach. Wakanda set up an outpost as well to interact with the larger galaxy.
The wedding of the third Prince of Asgard was a huge event. It was held on Asgard and was attended by several thousand people. Dr. Foster stood in as Ava's father and the poor man was crying the whole time. Sean would never forget the way she looked in her dress.
He felt a little pity for his brothers, the look their mother gave them was very pointed. It wouldn't surprise Sean if one or both were engaged very quickly. Thor and Jane had an amicable breakup, but the oldest Son of Odin seemed to finally realize what was in front of him and was courting Sif. Loki was still enjoying being a bachelor, so would probably suffer the brunt of their mother's attention.
With Thanos out of the way and so many people working to protect the world, the next generation of heroes began to make their appearance in more than one way. Tony and Pepper had a daughter they named Morgan and had as good as adopted Peter Parker. There wasn't any legal action, but they took the teen under their wing.
Several of the other hero couples got married or had kids. Bruce and Betty got married, they were waiting to find if Bruce's blood was safe for them to have children. Sean had fixed Nat up during the interim before the Battle of Sakaar and she had gotten close with the Captain. Ava's favorite was the blossoming pairing of Peter and Shuri. T'Challa had finally married Nakia and made her Queen of Wakanda.
Sean and Ava spent a portion of their capital in order to do one last full stock of the Fortress' storage. It was mostly raw materials with some refined stuff thrown in. This included a whole load of Vibranium courtesy of their relationship with Wakanda. When Sean returned the Time Stone to the Ancient One, she gave them a bunch of magical texts, supplies, and journals.
In the last few weeks they made the rounds to all of their friends and family. They didn't tell anyone that they were leaving, for the people staying it would seem like no time passed at all if they returned. Sean had already decided that this was more home than his original world, but the promise of everything else in the multiverse was too tempting to stop now.
His parents obviously knew something was up, because they spent the whole time giving advice and making sure he knew they would be proud of him no matter what. It was comforting, he hadn't been particularly close to his first set of parents so this was a nice change of pace.
Finally the time came, ten years to the day exactly the world seemed to freeze around them and a portal to the Fortress opened in front of them. Taking Ava's hand in his, they stepped into the Fortress, this time feeling more final than all the other times they had done it.
As soon as they entered the foyer Sean saw a blinking light on the Jump tablet. He picked it up and turned on the screen. Once more there was a string of words, just not the ones he was expecting.
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Standby…
AN: Alright here we go. This is the last of the MCU chapters. I've decided to go ahead and continue the story all here instead of starting a new one for each Jump. Keep an eye out for the next Jump, I'm not going to spoil it.
As hinted at the end there's some extra stuff coming. At least one of which is of my own design, maybe two. I haven't decided yet.
RIP Chadwick Boseman, we couldn't have had a better Black Panther.
Let me know what you think!